Page 6 of The Red Queen

“My home,” he told her.

“Italy?”

“Si.”

She had no connections in Italy and very few in Europe if she managed to escape him. She would be on her own, travelling through enemy territory until she could get back to Mexico.

“I ask again, are you in pain?” His voice took on a stern edge.

“No,” she said immediately.

Of course, she was lying, and they both knew it.

“I don’t wish for you to suffer.” He reached into his pocket and withdrew a syringe.

Desi recoiled against the narrow bed as far as she could, but there was nowhere to go and she was too weak to fight him.

“Don’t touch me,” she said hoarsely, infusing venom into her tone.

He shook his head and reached for her good arm.

She tried to flinch away, but she didn’t have the strength to escape him. The needle slid into the muscle of her bicep.

She remembered his words in the bunker. Slave. He wanted to make her his slave.

“I will never be your slave.” As the drug took effect, her words slurred, and her vision became blurry. “I’ll kill you first.”

She felt rather than saw his hand touch the side of her face.

“Good,” he murmured. “Like you, I live for the fight.”

“You… won’t… win.” Because she would die before allowing him to enslave her.

He either didn’t respond or she passed out before she heard his answer because the next thing she knew, she was waking up as the plane was landing. The impact of the wheels hitting the runway jolted her and she would have tumbled off her bed, except someone had belted her in and tossed a jacket across her shoulders.

She inhaled the scent and realized it belonged to Giovanni. An image of him pushing her against the wall in the bunker and pricking her with a needle flashed in her head. She’d inhaled his scent then, too. It was tobacco, mint, and wine. Or so she thought. Pleasant.

She shoved the jacket away, pushing it onto the floor before struggling to sit up. She caught Giovanni’s eye as she pushed long, black strands of hair from her face. He was belted in across from her, wearing an unruffled expression as he watched her.

When the plane came to a halt on the runway, he unbuckled his seatbelt and stood, approaching her. She sat motionless as he unbelted her, leaning over her. If she had a knife, she could stab him in the carotid artery.

Her eyes darted down his slim torso, to the holster attached to his leather belt, then lifted to the men surrounding them. When she’d surveilled Mateo and his girlfriend, she hadn’t seen even a hint of this kind of firepower. She’d been single-minded in her desire for revenge, which was what landed her in this predicament.

Stupid.

She would have to be a hell of a lot smarter than she’d been so far.

Giovanni finished with her seatbelt, slid his hands under her armpits, and helped her stand. She wanted to jerk away from him, but a rush of darkness hit her, obscuring her vision. Her head began pounding painfully and she couldn’t help the moan that escaped her.

“Take a minute,” Giovanni said, his grip on her firm.

She felt the movement of his men all around them as they grabbed their bags and departed the aircraft. None of them seemed overly concerned with protecting the boss from her. A mistake she was going to exploit at the first opportunity. It had been her experience over years of working and living in a cartel that the men she came into contact with almost always underestimated her.

Nico hadn’t. He’d encouraged her deadlier attributes, giving her the tools she’d needed to survive life among the cartels.

Italy couldn’t be much different from Mexico. She would exploit these men, and she would exploit Giovanni’s apparent disinterest in hurting her.

She would escape.

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